1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to electronic communication technology and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for monitoring electronic mail message activity.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic mail (e-mail) archiving is a systematic approach to saving and protecting the data contained in e-mail messages so it can be accessed reliably and quickly at a later date. Because of compliance laws, government regulations and legal discovery rules, it has become necessary for many organizations to archive e-mail messages so specific ones can be located and retrieved easily. An e-mail message archiving software manages large e-mail archives and also helps in reducing the cost to store the archived e-mail messages. Typical e-mail message archiving software also provides indexing and search capabilities.
Typical e-mail systems comprise a user computer having e-mail software (e.g., MICROSOFT OUTLOOK), which communicates with an e-mail server (e.g., MICROSOFT EXCHANGE SERVER, LOTUS DOMINO SERVER, POP 3 SERVER and the like). Current archiving software programs periodically examine and archive every e-mail message stored in each mailbox located within the e-mail server. Further, the archived messages are stored in a separate storage container. Because the messages are archived periodically, in some instances, an e-mail message may be created, sent and deleted between archival periods. Accordingly, there is no way of verifying that the e-mail message was successfully received by the e-mail server from the e-mail software. In addition, the e-mail server occasionally drops or destroys the e-mail message. For example, a bug in the e-mail software code may cause a failure that results in the loss of one or more e-mail messages.
For compliance reasons, there is a need to provide end-to-end validation for every e-mail message related to the organization. End-to-end validation includes confirmation that an e-mail message was created, sent, received at a mail server and subsequently archived, such that every step in the message archiving process is verified.
Accordingly, there exists a need for method and apparatus that can monitor e-mail message activity. Further, there exists a need for method and apparatus that can enable end-to-end validation.